Oudh Lacquer Soivohle

To everyone's disappointment, this fragrance also dies from overeating. Oudh Lacquer sparked a great deal of interest in me and set high expectations: a very extravagant fragrance pyramid with all sorts of delicious and interesting ingredients, a long-lasting and highly concentrated “parfum absolute” in a beautiful bottle, as well as multiple awards and euphoric reviews from all over the world. Unfortunately, the scent does not truly live up to its reputation, and the bar it set for itself inevitably begins to lower.

Oudh Lacquer is an extremely intense fragrance, a veritable compressed mixture of high-grade and penetrating scent notes, lamentably far too overloaded and disjointed - overstuffed with the greed to combine all sorts of precious elements. The result ends here with a loud crash.

The top note practically stomps into the room; a hefty, unpleasant chocolate note uninvitedly settles on the bed and calls for wilted sprayed oranges accompanied by vulgar oud of inferior quality. While one tries to extend a semblance of hospitality to the three unwelcome visitors and resolve the situation without the liberating water spray of ejection, an atypical modern note rumbles into the building - not patchouli, no, it must be the mysterious spruce mushroom which simultaneously beckons its friends star anise and petitgrain inside - fear eats the soul!

It is exceedingly bold to pack scent notes like oud or petitgrain into the top note; in this case, the scent tones are completely oversaturated and, together with the other raw materials, extremely disharmonious - the head can safely go to the guillotine.

However, with the introduction of the heart note, the head is far from off, although the first three residents of the top note at least remain in a half-sleep on the bed. Relatively quickly, highly concentrated clove (here a reference to Serge Noir, sorry), unassuming, stale rose (Black Tie, lynch me), and insignificant cinnamon (rarely so inconsequentially implemented) storm into the room. Oudh Lacquer now smells of many things, almost everything (in extreme doses), but unfortunately not of the highly praised “natural” raw materials that Liz Zorn extolled in such high tones - an olfactory miscarriage.

Surprisingly, the base note then presents itself quite differently: Here, head and heart fall into the longed-for sleep, and a very beautiful scent accord of honey, cocoa, and tonka bean spreads out. The latter seems to trample the indicated vanilla underfoot, a soft, earthy smoke floods the room, and it becomes pleasantly warm. The benzoin is very restrained, the woods are well-measured, and the patchouli growls to itself at irregular intervals. A nice base, but far from convincing perfume artistry.

For the understanding of all interested parties and out of fairness towards Liz Zorn, I would like to explain my personal scent perception in a bit more detail with the following lines, because despite my rather negative rating, I am sure that Oudh Lacquer could definitely find many followers. All those who can handle the floral oud line from Montale or sympathize with Chanel's Egoiste should definitely test this fragrance (I, for my part, did not warm up to Black Oud, Egoiste, and the like). Those who recoil when they hear the gourmand keyword “chocolate” should not be deterred, because this chocolate is the pure opposite of Chocolate Greedy & co; here the chocolate note is much darker, even black and bitter, not delicious. Since Serge Noir and Black Tie are very popular here and apparently many fans of those clove or rose notes are present, especially they should give this American intense brew a chance. I certainly count intense and long-lasting fragrances (Oudh Lacquer lasts extremely long) among my absolute favorites; I like it when a fragrance polarizes and provokes, yet Oudh Lacquer and I will not become friends. It seems to me that Liz Zorn is the little and biting sister of Christopher Sheldrake; Oudh Lacquer could confidently join the controversial fragrance lines of Serge Lutens and would surely receive both a lot of disdain and some approval.

CONCLUSION: All the reading-lazy skeptics should at least indulge in the last paragraph explaining the rating if they are interested in the fragrance pyramid; those who like intense and spicy-sweet oud fragrances might find pleasure in Oudh Lacquer, and those, like me, who cannot find friendship with the aforementioned beloved scents - despite their good ratings - can confidently save themselves the shipping of the sample from the States. Not everything that glitters is gold.